The John Marshall House is a
historic house museum
A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...
and
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
at 818 East Marshall Street in
Richmond, Virginia. It was the home of
Chief Justice of the United States John Marshall, who was appointed to the court in 1801 by President
John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of t ...
and served for the rest of his life, writing such influential decisions as ''
Marbury v. Madison
''Marbury v. Madison'', 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137 (1803), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that established the principle of judicial review in the United States, meaning that American courts have the power to strike down laws and statutes t ...
'' (1803) and ''
McCulloch v. Maryland'' (1819).
Built in 1790, the house was home to Marshall, his wife Mary Willis Ambler Marshall (known within the family as Polly), and their six children. Marshall lived at the house until his death in 1835.
The house is a
Federal-style brick building featuring a dining room, parlor, and large
parlor
A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necess ...
/dining room on the first floor and three bedchambers on the second. It was originally surrounded by an outbuildings including a law office, kitchen, laundry, and stables and sat on a full city block in Richmond's fashionable
Court End
250px, 1000 block E. Clay Street
Court End is a neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia, that sits to the north of the Capitol Square and East Broad Street. It developed in the Federal era, after Virginia's capital moved from Williamsburg.
Boun ...
residential neighborhood. Marshall's neighbors included the attorney
John Wickham, who defended
Aaron Burr in Burr's infamous
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
trial.
History
John Marshall's account books show that he began to make payments for the purchase of the property from "Mr. B. Lewis" on October 7, 1786, and finished the payments on November 19, 1786. The Marshalls called a small wooden house their home while the building on the corner of Marshall and Ninth Streets was being built.
The actual date the Marshalls moved into their house is sometimes stated as 1788 and other times stated as January 1791.
When John Marshall built his house, Richmond's population was rapidly growing and many new homes were being built. The John Marshall House was one of the first homes to be built in the beginnings of a neighborhood which would later be known as the Court End of Richmond.
The first insurance policy regarding this home, which is dated 1796, states that "whole square, with the house as it is now except for the little wing, and a wooden office on Marshall Street, a wooden kitchen on Ninth, and the laundry"
were in John Marshall's ownership at that time. The insurance policy notes that the location of the previously mentioned buildings was lot 786 and that a stable was located at the extreme northwest corner of the square. Without deduction for decay, all the buildings on the property in 1796 were valued at $5500.
Luckily for historians, John Marshall kept good records of his finances in his account book. In his account book, he recorded the names of everyone who worked on his home. Mr. Sydnor, Keeling and Smith, W. Goode, W. Duke, and W. B. Lewis are listed as working on the house, with the last payment for work on the home in November 1790.
According to Marshall's account books, the total cost of the house was 1211 pounds, 1 shilling, and three pence.
Though Marshall's account book shows the last payment for work on the house being in November 1790, construction of fences and outbuildings was still in progress during July 1791.
Sometime before the insurance policy was updated in 1810, the John Marshall House expanded with a new wing and three porches, which were not included in the 1796 insurance policy.
Architecture
The exterior appearance of the house has been described as "unpretentious" and "simple in outline and detail."
The style of hand-carved woodwork that was common in eighteenth-century houses is found inside the John Marshall House.
Panels cover one end of both the parlor and the library, which also both feature small cupboards beside the chimney.
The main floor rooms all have
dadoes except for the small addition added to the first floor.
Though the dining room is absent of any paneling such as that located in the library and parlor, it has a "particularly beautiful" cornice and ornamented mantles.
In ''Houses of Old Richmond'',
Mary Wingfield Scott
Mary Wingfield Scott (1895–1983) was an American historic preservationist who documented Richmond, Virginia neighborhoods and advocated for preservation over demolition.
Biography
Scott was born on July 30, 1895, in Richmond, Virginia. She at ...
describes the rooms as "bright and well proportioned" and notes how "particularly charming" the stairway is.
She does, however, criticize the arrangement of the rooms as haphazard and unflattering, noting how upon entrance from a tiny vestibule the visitor must choose between turning right to the library or left to the parlor.
Preservation
The house, while owned by John Marshall's daughter Mary, was rented out to people such as Thomas B. Bigger,
Robert Gwathmey, Professor Charles H. Winston, Henry A. Wise, and Mrs. Mattie Paul Myers.
By the time his granddaughters, the Misses Anne and Emily Harvie, came into ownership of this house, the lot had been shrunk to only on Marshall Street and on Ninth Street.
Misses Anne and Emily Harvie sold the lot in 1907 to the City of Richmond, who planned to destroy the house and build John Marshall High School on the site.
Women's organizations were able to successfully unite to preserve the John Marshall House. In 1911, the house was placed into the perpetual care of
Preservation Virginia
Founded in 1889, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities was the United States' first statewide historic preservation group. In 2003 the organization adopted the new name APVA Preservation Virginia to reflect a broader focus o ...
(formerly known as the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities) who has operated it as a
historic house museum
A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...
ever since.
The house was declared a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 1960.
[ and ] In 2005, in honor of the 250th anniversary of John Marshall's birth and in recognition of more than 80 years of stewardship responsibility, the house was deeded to Preservation Virginia by the City of Richmond.
Since then the house has undergone major restoration work including a new roof, repainting to the original color scheme, and other physical and mechanical upgrades.
The John Marshall House is open seasonally for drop-in tours and throughout the year by appointment and for special events.
See also
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in Virginia
*
References
External links
*
John Marshall House, Richmond, one photo at Virginia DHR*
{{National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Historic American Buildings Survey in Virginia
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
National Historic Landmarks in Virginia
Houses completed in 1790
Historic house museums in Virginia
Houses in Richmond, Virginia
Museums in Richmond, Virginia
Marshall
Marshall may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Marshall, Victoria, a suburb of Geelong, Victoria
Canada
* Marshall, Saskatchewan
* The Marshall, a mountain in British Columbia
Liberia
* Marshall, Liberia
Marshall Islands
* Marshall Islands, an i ...
Federal architecture in Virginia
National Register of Historic Places in Richmond, Virginia
House